Coffee Stains and Broken Promises
by believeindreams-believeinyou
Summary: "How do you keep living without the person you were living for?" -Just a little Calzona story, pre-babydrama but post-Africa. My first ever Grey's fic. Read & review?
1. the first

_**A/N- Hi everyone! This is my very first Grey's Anatomy fanfiction. I'm a little nervous to see how this goes. **_

_**I wrote this a while ago, and I'm only now getting the courage to post it. I have the next few chapters planned and written, so I'm eager to see whether you guys wanna see more! **_

_**Shoot me a review and let me know when you're done! (: **_

_**happy reading. -Mitchie.**_

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><p>Arizona stared at the door to the humble apartment she'd grown to love, as she raised her coffee cup to her mouth and took a sip.<p>

Memories danced behind her newly closed eyes, and she allowed herself to be pulled into the scalding flavour of the caffeine.

Slowly but with purpose, she sunk down to the floor on the opposite side of the door.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew what she was doing. Her father had raised her to look for nothing less than a prince in a relationship. Someone who would wait outside her window all night to apologise.

Of course, he'd seen the situation through a father's eyes. He'd always seen her as the victim of the wrongdoing.

This time, it was Arizona who had done wrong. It was Arizona who needed to apologise. It was Arizona who was hell-bent on being Calliope's prince.

She heard the door unlock and she jumped to her feet, spilling coffee on the floor in the process.

Callie Torres, the beautiful latina and orthopaedic surgeon extraordinare, saw the blonde and rolled her eyes.

"Go home." she said, shutting and locking the door, without so much as a glance towards Arizona.

"No." Arizona said firmly. Her father had also raised her to be a good man in a storm - she wasn't about to abandon ship because the seas got a little rough.

"What?" Callie blinked, turning around and staring at her dead-on.

"No, Calliope. I will not go home. And I will not go to work, and I will not sleep. Heck, I'll even stop breathing. Why? Because being in the comfort of my own home, having a job, being well-rested and being alive pale in comparison to this. To you."

"Stop being dramatic." Callie said, as if giving an order.

"No."

Callie watched the blonde intently.

Arizona had always been a sort of push-over in their relationship. With a little charm, Callie could make her do anything she wanted to. And now she was blatantly refusing.

"I left the one thing I dreamt of doing my entire life for you. I left all those tiny humans. Calliope, I live for tiny humans. My life revolves around fixing their little bodies. And for what? So they can grow up and get hurt? No. Because I believe that everyone has a happily ever after in store for them, everyone deserves a second chance, and everyone should believe in something, whether it be love or magic. You're ruining that for me. I thought we were the happily ever after. Callie, I love you, and you're making it hard for me to continue believing in what I thought I did."

"Don't call me that." Callie said, her voice cracking.

"Calliope." Arizona corrected.

"Arizona, I can't do this now. I have to... I can barely stand to look at you. Believe me, I want that to change, because I think I still love you too, but I don't know if it can."

"You think?" Arizona asked, eyebrow raised. "I've been back for two weeks and you think?"

"I have to go." Callie whispered, pushing past her and taking off into the hall.

Arizona watched her leave, aware that she might not ever leave on good terms again.

She couldn't help but wish it was different... Comparing it to a fairytale.

Fairytales always had happy endings. Arizona knew; she'd read enough of them to kids in the paeds ward.

She knew that in the end, all was forgiven, and it was the same in movies.

Arizona slid back down to the floor, avoiding the cold patch of spilt coffee, and slipped back into her door-staring stupor.

_If only this was a movie._


	2. the second

**A/N- recently, it has come to my attention that I'm horrible at keeping up with things and thus have had all chapters of this fic typed up but never posted them. Good job, Michelle. So, as a little treat, I'm going to post them all now (and a special alternate ending that I otherwise never would have let see the light of day. It's so cheesy it should be on a pizza.)**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Grey's. Or a llama for that matter..**

**Oh, and these are straight from my iPod. No editing. Sorry if they're horrible. Please don't burn your eyes out or anything, that would just be dramatic.**

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><p>Callie flung a little green rubber ball against a sterilised blue wall, and caught it when it bounced back.<p>

_Bop bop, catch._  
><em>Bop bop, catch.<em>

The sound echoed throughout the on-call room, which Callie had inhabited for the last hour or so.

_Bop bop, catch._

She couldn't help but find the sound mildly soothing.

Part of her knew that this was just an avoidance tactic - Arizona Robbins, as reported by Mark Sloan, had not left her place outside Callie's door for two days.

Callie knew it was childish to avoid the conversation that they needed to have, but hey, Arizona was used to childish.  
>At least, that's what she told herself as she hid in the depths of the hospital.<p>

_Bop bop, catch._  
><em>Knock, knock.<em>

"Torres? Open up!" Mark Sloan's deep voice boomed through the thin wood of the door.

"It's open, Mark!" Callie calls back, her voice thick with bottled up emotion.

She hears the door open and shut again, and feels Mark sit beside her on the floor. But she can't bring herself to look at him.

"You're a hot mess." he admits.

_Bop bop, catch._

"Yeah, well, at least I'm still hot." she retorts.

"Barely." he scoffs, looking her up and down.

_Bop bop, catch._

"What do you mean?"

"I've never seen you so miserable. And I've seen you miserable a handful of times."

_Bop bop, catch._

"She hurt me."

"That might've been true... At first. But I think you're over that now, and you have been for a while. I think you're just doing this to hurt her. That isn't healthy, Cal. You can't keep dealing low blows back and forth and expect things to change. Chances are, she hurt just as much as you did when she left. As much as I don't like Blondie, I won't ignore that she's suffered enough. Go talk to her."

_Bop bop, catch._

"I don't want to."

"You may not want to, but you need to. For everyone's sake."

He reaches over and snatched the ball out of Callie's fingers, forcing her to make eye contact with him.

"This thing," he says, holding the ball up between his thumb and pointer finger, "Is annoying. You can hear it all the way down in the pit."

Callie smiles a tiny bit.

"See? Marky can always make you feel better. Now go get your girl, Torres." he says, pushing himself up off the floor and pulling the door closed behind him.

Callie took a deep breath, inhaling all the fresh air Mark had let in with his departure.

If this was one of those movies Arizona liked to watch, she'd be sitting next to her in front of a roaring fire by now. She would've forgiven Arizona the first time she'd shown up on the doorstep.

Callie sighed and fiddled with her chewed-up nails.

_If only this was a movie.._


	3. the third

**A/N- WHOOP WHOOP.**

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><p>"Look. This by no means insinuates that I forgive you," Callie said, walking straight up to Arizona's mini-camp outside her apartment and looking her straight in the eye, "but I think you need to come inside. You can't sit in the hall forever."<p>

"Au contraire."

"Arizona, for God's sake. I'm trying to be civil here."

Arizona stood up.

"You know what, Calliope? I don't want you to be civil. I don't want you to _have_ to be civil. Just say what you're actually thinking."

"What I'm actually thinking?"

The look on Callie's face made Arizona second-guess herself, but only for a few seconds.

"We'll never recover from this if we can't be honest."

Callie took a deep breath.

"What I'm actually thinking. Hmm. Let's start with that humiliated feeling of being left at an airport." Callie's tone darkened, making Arizona stand just that bit taller.

She wasn't giving in. Not today.

"Or maybe those few days where I just couldn't breathe? Or the weeks I couldn't bear to leave the hospital because I knew there was no point? I curled up in bed for the first time a week after you left, Arizona, and I was utterly disgusted with myself when I realised that I couldn't sleep without you curled up at my side! And now you're back, and I'm even more disgusted with myself because whenever I look at you, I feel like I should break that pretty little face of yours!"Callie screamed the last sentence, tears threatening to spill over.

"No. NO. You know what, Calliope Torres? You do not get to talk to me like that. I made a mistake. WE ALL DO. We're human! Not everyone can live inside a perfect pink bubble forever, and I'm sorry that it had to be me who popped it first, because that's a seemingly unforgivable deed!"

Callie opened her mouth, but Arizona cut her off before she could pronounce a syllable.

"No. Shut up. I don't want to hear any more about how you couldn't sleep in your cosy little apartment. I moved to another COUNTRY. You have no idea what insomnia is like until you're experiencing it on the floor of a dirt shack, surrounded by starving kids you can't help because that's not the reason you were brought to their lives! You don't know hurt until you realise that the ONE thing you wanted to do with your life isn't what you want to do anymore, because in no way can it include the girl from Seattle who you just happened to fall in love with. You don't know pain until you realise that you're not the person your parents raised you to be anymore. So no, Callie. You don't get to cry. You don't get to hold a grudge. You don't get to break my face, or any of my other body parts. You just DON'T. I love you, for God's sake, and I didn't realise it was this bad until I left, but now it just plain scares the hell out of me!" Arizona yelled, her voice gaining strength with each new sentence, only to come crashing back down to a whisper again for the very last words. "I love you, and if it ends up killing me, well... I have to admit that I'd be okay with that. As long as you weren't mad at me anymore."

Arizona's chest heaved as the leftover adrenaline coursed through her body.

She was prepared. She was ready for goodbye.

She didn't know how she'd ever manage to truly find herself again, but for now, she was ready for Callie's comeback.

Callie's eyes didn't move from Arizona's form, and she braced herself accordingly.

Callie took a deep breath.

And then Arizona felt like she was dreaming. She was pretty sure Callie had knocked her unconscious, because there was no way that Callie would be kissing her right now.

Arizona could feel a hand in her hair, pulling roughly, and a hand on her waist bringing her closer, but she still didn't trust her own senses.

She felt her own body reacting to this dreamscape land she'd somehow created, muscles relaxing to allow her to melt into dream-Callie's form.

The lips lefts hers, though. Too soon. But they returned to pepper butterfly kisses on and around her lips, and the hand originally on her waist was moved to the other side of her head.

"I forgive you, Arizona." Callie whispered.

Arizona only needed to open her eyes once to know that what just happened, wasn't a dream after all.

"I didn't say I was sorry." she admitted in a small voice.

Callie chuckled, pressing her lips to Arizona's forehead once.

"You didn't need to." she whispered back.


	4. the alternate one

**A/N- as the author of this really cheesy, horrible piece of horrible fluffiness, I suggest you click out of this window and forget this chapter was ever posted. **

**Continue if you want to, but you've been warned. **

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><p><strong>ALTERNATE CHAPTER 3:<strong>

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><p>Arizona was actually about to get up and leave when Callie turned the corner for the elevator.<p>

They both pressed the button at exactly the same time, but the lift went to the higher floor first.

Arizona stepped in and pulled her bag close against her chest. She couldn't help but feel like she'd failed and lied to the one person she could see forever with.

She watched the little red numbers decrease with a heavy feeling in her heart. She couldn't pin-point what it was, but it did hurt.

"At least I'm not going crazy." Arizona said to herself as the lift stopped at ground level and the doors slipped open.

"That's debatable."

Arizona's head whipped upwards, and she smiled. Before her was Callie, who had obviously gotten there just in time.

"Thank God I caught you." Callie said, stepping into the elevator and pressing the "door close" button.

Arizona couldn't take her eyes off of Callie.

"You weren't taking off on me, were you Robbins?"

"Ca- I... I.."

"Shh, it's probably best if you don't speak." Callie said smoothly, pulling Arizona close to her.

She kissed the blonde's hair and just held her.

"I forgive you, Arizona." she whispered, and somehow Arizona knew that everything was going to be okay. "Te quiero, para siempre."

"Forever." Arizona repeated.

Callie spun her slightly so she could meet her eyes.

"How did you know?"

"I pick things up really quickly."

Callie chuckled.

"I love you, Calliope."

"I love you too, Arizona."

Life can never be exactly like a movie. Both surgeons knew that.  
>Sometimes people die, sometimes the bad guys win, and sometimes happy endings just don't exist.<br>But in this moment, this peaceful scene in which the two cuddled on the lounge in front of a roaring fire, the beautiful serenity of the gesture alone illuminated that their life together was close enough to a movie that it would've astonished even the most avid believer of fairytales.  
>Arizona Robbins and Calliope Torres didn't need a movie. They had each other.<p> 


End file.
